Stale Beer and Cigarette Smoke
by Menthol Pixie
Summary: One shot. Sam gets himself into a spot of bother at a bar.


**Stale Beer and Cigarette Smoke**

**A/N: Hi everyone! I've apparently had a burst of inspiration in the last day or so and this story just spilled out... Has some sensitive themes. Hope you enjoy.**

XXX

Sam thinks they must be demons, because he can't move, can't speak, can't do anything to escape their grasp, and he's terrified.

A distant part of him remembers the bar, being bored out of his mind, watching Dean play a seemingly never-ending game of pool. Normal. People everywhere, dancing and drinking, nursing his own beer and trying to ignore the headache the music was bringing on.

He remembers that there was nothing spectacular about their evening. Between hunts, he let Dean talk him into going out to try his hand at raising some extra cash. Really, he thinks Dean just wanted to flirt, maybe get laid, but there was nothing else to do apart from sit in a ratty old motel room and watch black and white snow dance on an ancient TV set.

Now, Sam wishes he were watching the snow. Wishes he was anywhere but here, but he can't move. Can't even hold himself up but someone else is doing it for him. Something else. They must be demons.

Sam also remembers the man that came and sat next to him, attempted to draw him into conversation. It's foggy and he can't see clearly but he's fairly certain that it's the same man who's holding him against the wall outside the bar.

Sam isn't drunk. He knows that for sure because he only had two beers and he didn't even finish the second one because it tasted funny, but he feels drunk. The world is sloshing around him, making him feel sea sick which a far off part of him registers as kind of funny because they're no where near any beaches, no oceans close by. They're… Sam can't remember where they are beyond the fact that he's outside a bar with demons and he doesn't know where Dean is.

One of the demons is speaking. There are four of them, Sam thinks, taking into account his double, triple vision. God, why can't everything just stay still?

"Saw yooooou wa'ing meeee."

The demon must be confused. Sam was only watching Dean, hoping that he'd hurry the hell up and finish his game so that they could leave. Sam was bored. He wishes he was still bored now.

"Lemme go…" Not much but it's better than his previous attempts at speech. There's no response however, apart from a mouth pressing against his, warm and moist and tasting of stale beer and cigarette smoke. Sam gags and tries to shove the demon away, but it's hard enough just keeping his eyes open.

A hand raises and strikes him hard across the face. Sam doesn't see it, only feels it. An open-hand slap that knocks his already precarious hold of reality out of focus.

He drifts for a while – he has no concept of time, it could have been hours or seconds, months or years – but when he comes back to himself he's still in the alley way, being held by one of the demons now, instead of against the wall, his back pressed against the hell-spawn's meat suit's chest, his arms crossed over each other and his wrists held in hands like vices, crushing them against his chest.

It's like being in a dream, or a nightmare, knowing what he wants his body to do but unable to convince it to obey. Even so, he wrestles to regain some level of control and kicks out, blindly, as hard as he can, and feels it connect, but he can tell for himself that it was weak. Still, his efforts are rewarded by another slap to the face that sends him spinning.

A hand fists in his hair, Sam feels it creeping through his locks before it is pulled taut, yanking his head back and Sam wants to scream but can't because another mouth has smothered any noises he could make.

The kiss is brutal, violent and so horribly intrusive that Sam wants to crawl out of his own skin. It's like no kiss he's ever had before and for a long moment Sam is too stunned to react. He tastes blood and it seems to wake up something inside him and the next second he's kicking and thrashing and still being held easily. He may as well have been doing nothing.

There's the dizzying sensation of falling and a dull far-off pain as he hits the ground on his hands and knees. He would have crumpled further but he's being dragged up again, passed between the demons like a rag doll, and nothing he does will stop it.

He's surrounded. He can feel hot breath on his face, feel the demons pressing in, suffocating him. He can't breathe. Hands grope up his t-shirt, sending shivers that have nothing to do with cold up his spine, and then there are hands scrabbling at his belt, tearing at his jeans and terror claws up his throat, erupting in a scream that's cut short by a hand clamping over his mouth.

Sam struggles, trying to pull away but there's nowhere to go, nowhere that isn't infested by demons. Sam fights even as the effort brings gray the edges of his already muddled vision. Everything's spinning and twisting and he wants to throw up but he manages to dislodge the hand from his mouth long enough to yell the one word that means anything to him right now, or ever.

"Dean!"

XXX

When the red clears from Dean's vision, he is alone in the alley behind the bar with Sam.

There's a gun in his hand, but the absence of bodies littering the ground informs him that he hasn't shot anyone, or at least, not badly. He's shaking with a fury but has enough sense left to thumb the safety on before slipping the gun back into his waistband.

The space between him and Sam is endless. Dean thinks it's the longest distance he's ever walked but then he's at Sam's side in an instant, and crouching down next to him, reaching out a hand to raise his brother's head so he can get a look at his face.

Sam flinches, a wholly un-Sam-like whimper escaping as he tries to pull away.

"It's me, Sam. Just me. It's okay."

Sam freezes at his voice and lets Dean lift his head to inspect the damage. First thing he notices, as is always the way when it's on Sam, is the blood. It trickles down his chin from a split lip, more from a shallow cut just under his left eye. It's during his examination of this cut that leads him to the second thing he notices.

Sam's eyes. There's something very wrong with them. The way they look through him, unfocused and pupils dilated… and the truth hits him like a ton of bricks.

Sam's been drugged.

Quickly followed is the realization that Sam's belt is undone, his fly open, and he knows exactly what those mongrels had been planning to do to his brother.

The red haze threatens to envelop him once more, his body lusting to chase the men who did this and actually use his gun, but he can't leave Sam here, alone and defenseless.

Sam seems to sense his rage, it must be emanating from him in waves, because the kid draws back, staring at him as if he's second-guessing whether it actually is Dean or not.

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean sooths, even though it's not. There's nothing okay about this situation except that he miraculously managed to get there in time, before…

"Let's get you back to the motel, hey?"

Dean lifts him slowly but even so Sam's eyes roll and he lists heavily against him, not quite unconscious but pretty close. Enough so that he's no help at all during the walk/drag to the Impala.

Dean has just started the engine when Sam, unreachable before now, sits up – or attempts to – with a look close to panic on his face.

"Demons," he mumbles, pressing himself against the door in an attempt at escape.

Dean actually looks around – more habit than anything – before he realizes what Sam's talking about.

"No, Sam," he shakes his head, "They were people."

Sam looks bewildered, "Dean?"

"Yeah, Sammy, it's me. Everything's gonna be okay now."

The drive back to the motel is silent, Sam drifting in and out and Dean tensing and relaxing his grip on the steering wheel. He wants to punch something, preferably one of those men, really hard, and he wrestled with the urge to simply turn the Impala around and go hunting, but Sam needs rest, and the motel is in his sights.

To anyone watching, they would have looked like a pair of drunks stumbling back to their room after a big night out; Sam barely holding himself up while Dean staggers under his weight, and Dean is happy to let them think that. All he cares about is getting Sam inside.

He plunks his inebriated kid brother down on the bed and steadies him when Sam starts to slump sideways.

"Whoa, stay awake, kiddo. I wanna check you out first." Dean shakes his head slightly, "And apparently, I need to give you a lecture about watching your drink in bars."

Sam just stares at him as if he's speaking a foreign language. Dean sighs and begins his more in-depth examination of his brother's injuries.

Sam doesn't look too bad, all things considered. Just roughed up a bit. Although Dean sees red again when he eases Sam's jacket off and notices the forming bruises around Sam's wrists, the blood under his nails.

Mixed in with the rage, however, is pride. The blood isn't Sam's. Sam had fought, as hard as he could, even in the state he was. Bought enough time for Dean to get there. He hated to think what would have happened if he'd arrived a few minutes later.

Dean shakes the thought out of his head and gently nudges Sam down on the bed, tugging off his boots.

"Just sleep now, Sammy. You're safe."

Dean isn't expecting an answer so he's surprised when Sam, his eyes closed, breathing evened out, murmurs, "Thanks, D'n."

Dean smiles deftly, and pulls up a chair, settling back to watch over his little brother as he sleeps.

XXX

Sam doesn't remember what happened, just being alone and afraid and then Dean, but he sees the bruises around his own wrists, on his arms, the damage to his face, and figures that maybe he'd rather not know.

Dean hovers, so Sam understands that whatever happened, it freaked Dean out, and when Dean disappears for a couple of hours, and returns with blood on his hands and splattered up his top, Sam doesn't say a word. Just thanks God, not for the first time, that Dean is his brother.

**End.**

**A/N: Reviews are love. Thanks for reading.**


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